Greater New Orleans

LSU catcher Tyler Moore shakes the hand of starting pitcher Aaron Nola as he leaves the plate late in the game against the University of Houston at the Regional playoff game on Saturday, May 31, 2014 at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge.
(Chris Granger, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune)

The University of Houston baseball fan couldn't help it. After LSU all-American pitcher Aaron Nola struck out the side in the Cougars' first at-bat in Saturday night's winners bracket NCAA regional tournament game in Alex Box Stadium, his pitches were all over the place in the second inning.

Houston had just tied the score at 1-1, and Nola had backed himself into a bases-loaded two-out jam.

It's a good bet the unflappable, stone-faced Nola never heard the taunt. Because when things get rocky, that's when he and his teammates are at their very best.

A few pitches later, Tigers' shortstop Alex Bregman sprinted about 30 yards to make a diving catch in foul territory for a rally-killing third out. That was the Houdini escape that Nola needed in a 5-1 victory that placed LSU one win away from advancing to the Super Regionals.

After Nola's 28-pitch second inning, he shut out the Cougars, shut up the heckler, and earned some new admirers. He threw 104 pitches in 7.1 innings, allowing that lone run and four hits while striking out seven and walking one.

"Aaron Nola was good as advertised, as he usually is," said Houston catcher Caleb Barker. "The numbers speak for themselves. The way he fills up a strike zone, if you go up there not aggressive, it's real easy to find yourself behind in the count. When he gets ahead of you, that's when he has you because he has stuff to put you away."

One of the Tigers' motivations to advance to next weekend's Super Regional in Alex Box is to give Nola one more start before the home crowd that numbered 10,438 on Saturday. The junior right-hander is projected as a first-round pick in Thursday's Major League draft.

He has been a joy to watch in his three-year LSU career, and oddly, he's at his best when he has the occasional bad inning and has to dig deep.

It happened in last year's Regionals against Sam Houston State and it occurred again on Saturday.

"I got myself in that jam and after that I tried to put up as many zeroes as I could," said Nola, 11-1 this season. "You have to keep going at the hitters."

Nola's escape act never fails to amaze his teammates.

"After that little jam he got in, you look up and it's the eighth inning already," Bregman said. "You're like, 'Wow, Aaron Nola is really special on the mound.' He kept pounding the strike zone. When you have a bulldog like that on the mound, he keeps you on your toes."

The way Nola struggled in the second inning, LSU coach Paul Maineri, usually an optimist, didn't think Nola would last more than five innings. But when Nola started throwing more off-speed pitches and got through several innings with low pitch counts, he ended up dazzling Mainieri once again.

"He's one of the most amazing competitors I've ever been around," Manieri said. "Even when he's not throwing his best, somehow he finds a way to get out of it."

Until 10 games ago when the baseball gods decided to remove the hex off LSU's chilly bats, giving the Tigers' firepower to stoke college baseball's current longest winning streak, Nola and the rest of the Tigers' superb pitching staff had no margin of error. Giving up two runs meant a possible loss, allowing three runs was certain defeat.

But ever since LSU waxed Northwestern State 27-0 (the Tigers missed the extra point) on May 13, it has scored fewer than five runs just once.

That happened in LSU's 2-0 victory over regular-season SEC champ Florida in the league tournament championship game. That's the same Florida, by the way, which got eliminated on Saturday from the NCAA tourney after two straight losses in the Regionals the Gators were hosting as the No. 2 overall seed.

The only thing you could nitpick in Saturday's win over Houston was several LSU baserunners being thrown out. Call it sloppiness or write it off as over-aggression.

But at this point, with the Tigers finally swinging away to support the season-long lockdown pitching, base-running mistakes seem minor.

"We're three wins away from the College World Series," Maineri said. "We are basically counting them off now."